“The Shining” (1980)
These days, relatively few people would disagree with the proposition that Stanley Kubrick‘s “The Shining” is the finest ever adaptation of King’s work — it’s an endlessly rewatchable masterpiece, and regularly named as one of the best horror films in polls (number 2 in Time Out’s last year). One of those few who don’t like the film? King himself, who once wrote that it was one of the few adaptations of his work he could “remember hating,” finding it departing from the source material, thematically and supernaturally, writing “What’s basically wrong with Kubrick’s version of ‘The Shining’ is that it’s a film by a man who thinks too much and feels too little; and that’s why, for all its virtuoso effects, it never gets you by the throat and hangs on the way real horror should.” Well, due respect to the author, but anyone who’s seen the King-approved 1997 made-for-TV miniseries version starring Steven Weber knows exactly how wrong he is. Kubrick made something that doesn’t just elevate the source material, but also the horror genre in general, coming up with something richer, stranger and more profound. Indeed, this fall’s “Room 237,” an outstanding documentary looking at the various theories cooked up around the movie, only goes to highlight further the extent to which the film is a gloriously opaque, multi-faceted wonder, even aside from being visually stunning and brilliantly acted. Of course, much of this is down to Kubrick, but despite his feelings on the movie, much of King’s text remains in there, so he should perhaps learn to feel a little prouder about the thing.
“Stand By Me” (1986)
King’s first collaboration with Rob Reiner (who’d later name his production company, Castle Rock, set up the following year, for the fictional Maine town in which many of King’s novels are set) showed a new maturity for a director who’d previously worked mostly in the comedy arena. Not that “Stand By Me” — about four friends who set out in search of the body of a missing boy — isn’t funny. The script, from “Starman” writers Raynold Gideon and Bruce A. Evans, has that raw authenticity that reminds you of the friends you had as a child that made you laugh until it hurt. But there’s also a melancholy tone here too, with the pain for those friends, for the men they became and the boys they’ll never be again. But, it’s the way that it veers away from sentimentality, even as the material seems to demand it, that marks it as something special. Reiner’s ever-developing keen eye for casting ends up with four very special leads in Wil Wheaton, Jerry O’Connell, Corey Feldman and River Phoenix (whose sad passing only seven years later gives the film extra poignancy), and they don’t so much seem to be acting as just being captured as they come of age. King considers it his favorite of the adaptations of his work, and when you exclude the author’s views on “The Shining,” it’s hard to disagree.
